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Comment by slackstation | Hacker News Reader

I enjoyed Serial but, later read critiques of how the Serial podcast was making entertainment out of someone's actual life and another person's actual murder.

As much as I enjoy fictional murder in various mediums, it started to turn my stomach a bit. These are real lives. People actually died.

It's hard for me to find any kind of entertainment out of the idea that what seemed like a kind, gentle young person was actually murdered. Whether Adnan was actually guilty or not, is a matter of the court and maybe the victim's family. It shouldn't be my entertainment.

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I think turning the listener's stomach was very much the point. Not only did someone actually get murdered, but the criminal trial that followed it was horribly mis-managed on multiple fronts. The horror of an insane murderer is one thing, but the travesty of our slow and deliberate justice system malfunctioning to such an extreme extent is significantly worse.

I'm glad Syed is getting another trial and certainly the prosecution did not put on a flawless case, but I think it's a bit of a retcon to suggest that this is an instance of a prosecution malfunctioning to an extreme extent (whether it's an instance of the defense doing that: different question).

The prosecution had:

* The confession of an accomplice which included non-public details about the crime

* Cell phone evidence both directly implicating Syed and damaging his alibi

* A series of incriminating misstatements from Syed himself

Remember, the prevailing online sentiment about Hans Reiser was that he'd been stereotyped and then railroaded into a conviction as well. Reiser's defense also hinged on the notion that no physical evidence directly connected him to the crime. But that's not how murder prosecutions work.

My issue with the trial was there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

It is like that documentary that caused waves recently, about the guy whose original rape conviction was overturned by DNA evidence only to get convicted of murder. It's not that there's no evidence Adnan had something to do with the killing. It's that the burden of evidence wasn't met.

It's guilt beyond the reasonable doubt of the jury. Few people would ever be convicted if the standard was guilt beyond anyone's reasonable doubt.

The issue though is that his attorney didn't do her job, to the degree that her didn't-do-her-job-tiveness was actually whatever the equivalent to malpractice is in law. So my point is that with hindsight and far more information, in the light of a far more thorough investigation than either side of the trial did in the first place, there's not enough evidence to rise above reasonable doubt. In my opinion, as an idiot layman spouting off on the internet about shit I know nothing about, obviously.

I agree strongly about his attorney. But he didn't end up with a crappy attorney for want of resources: she was an elite defense attorney, suffering (we now know) from serious health defects.

Again: my point isn't that the verdict is correct. It's just that this isn't a great case for prosecution run amok.

the prevailing online sentiment about Hans Reiser was that he'd been stereotyped and then railroaded into a conviction

Setting aside the issue of how prevailing that sentiment was, it seems like a questionable comparison - Reiser could have walked away with murder if not for his own hubris and obstinacy. And surely nobody thought he'd been 'railroaded' after he was convicted and led authorities to his victim's body.

That happened quite some time after his conviction. It was debated on Reddit and HN; check out those threads.

I guess I (maybe mis-?) remember it more from mailing lists but I'll take your word for it on the threads. Still, one guy has a studiously ambivalent and popular podcast series about the crime and now apparently a retrial. The other one had a hugely favourable plea deal that he didn't take. It just doesn't seem like a comparable set of circumstances.

>I enjoyed Serial but, later read critiques of how the Serial podcast was making entertainment out of someone's actual life and another person's actual murder.

I don't fault Serial for that because Sarah Koening and the team were very respectful - and there is nothing wrong with telling a crime story.

I did find the way people were discussing it online was offputting, for the reasons you stated.

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